After the EU Foreign Affairs Council: Hungarian minister says Brussels announces new pro-Ukrainian war initiatives

The European Commission has announced new pro-Ukraine war initiatives involving “even more money, weapons and military advisors” being sent to Ukraine, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said after an EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

Szijjártó told a press conference that the plan is to increase the value of arms shipped to Ukraine to 40 billion euros this year.

He said this includes voluntary fast aid of 2 million rounds of ammunition costing five billion euros, adding that the aid cannot be mandatory because Hungary has blocked the EU from making such transfers as official policy.

He noted that Hungary has steered clear of sending military advisors to Kyiv as the government’s position is that such a mission should only operate outside Ukrainian territory, otherwise there would be a serious risk of the war escalating in Europe’s direction. “This is a red line for us,” he said.

Szijjártó said that regarding the 17th new package of sanctions against Russia, there were demands that it should be “massive and very robust.” His Ukrainian counterpart had even “demanded” restrictions on Russian energy purchases and the nuclear industry. “We won’t accept this at all,” he said, noting ongoing direct negotiations between the US and Russia and it was not the time to put Russian government members on the sanctions list. While “some people here” wanted to restrict the movement of Russian diplomats within the EU, talks between the US and Russian were under way to restore the operations of diplomatic missions, he added.

Meanwhile, the minister said moves were afoot to open all chapters of the Ukrainian accession negotiations this year. Moreover, he added that an EU commissioner raised “the hair-raising idea” of fully integrating Ukraine economically before it joins the bloc.

“Hungary wants peace, not war,” he said, adding that support stated for a ceasefire was merely rhetorical as “this massive package of proposals” in effect underpinned the “failed pro-war policy of the past three years”. He added that the package would “bring danger” to Europe and Hungary, so Hungary rejects it.

Szijjártó said all EU member states “and Brussels” were putting Hungary under strong pressure to allow Ukraine’s rapid accession to the bloc.

“So today they wanted us to give in,” although the rights of the Hungarian national community “are being violated in Ukraine”. “I made clear that only the Hungarian people can decide on this issue … [and they can do so] in the referendum in April and May.” Szijjártó also appealed to “every Hungarian” to express their views on Ukraine’s EU membership on the X platform.

As we wrote earlier, Orbán did not veto EU sanctions against Russia because he got a phone call from Washington, DC.